if thou hast eyes to see
by owedbetter
Summary: Sometimes, you can only ever save one person. And sometimes, that's enough. (Post-Goolding Inquiry!Malcolm/Post-DiH!Clara whom the doc never comes back for. Malcolm works for UNIT. AU. M for future chapters.)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** I've had this idea for a while now and I've been trying to flesh it out for a while now and I finally think I'm ready to post it. I'm quite a bit nervous as I'd never written Malcolm before but I literally could not get this AU out of my head. Basically, it's post-the Goolding Inquiry for Malcolm and pre-Last Christmas for Clara, following the idea that the Doctor never comes back for her. Yeah. Constructive criticism is highly encouraged. xxx

P.S. We're just going to pretend that Malcolm and Twelve are not played by the same actor. Yes? Yes.

* * *

" _Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are."_

Niccolò Machiavelli, _The Prince_

* * *

When he was but a lad, green as green can be, he nurtured the very unlikely dream of a life in the industry of espionage.

To be fair, it wasn't a particularly rare dream. Everyone had them back in the day and kids always had them whenever there was a new spy picture in the cinemas. That much hasn't changed over the years. But it was the likes of the smooth and dapper as fuck Roger Moore, to the boy he was at that age, that one image he could not help but look up to.

Oh, to wear crisply pressed three-piece suits that were tailored to his figure to absolute perfection; to so manoeuvre a firearm as fluidly as a rolling tide; to have every dame and damsel fall to their knees just at the sound of his name from his lips, all cool and suave like he'd rehearsed it a million times before…

He knew, of course, that it was impossible. It was strictly a boy's pipe dream—but oh, dream he did. His dreams were never short of saving the world. He always wanted to make things better and he knew he could. He then imagined scenarios where he would be in Her Majesty's Secret Service; he would be the best among all of them. He could blend in better than a silhouette in a room full of shadows; he's been weaving tapestries of backstories that could make Penelope weep with envy since he was but a wee bouncing tot.

But James Bond wasn't Scottish and Messiah for-fucking-bid he ever turned fucking _English_ for a fucking _job_.

Malcolm Dougan Tucker still had _some_ pride left about him, after all.

This, he considered in hindsight, was just the next best thing to a double life.

He was still a master deceiver, of course. He made Machiavellian look _good_. And he was more than adept at handing out assassinations, of a kind, for the greater good when needed be. Damn himself for the good of the innocents; a regular John the Baptist, he was, as they'd already served his fucking head on a silver platter when they sent him off to serve at Her Majesty's pleasure instead, don't think he's either forgiven or forgotten.

And besides— James Bond was also a fucking misogynistic twat, he soon came to realise when he started thinking properly with the right head; for all of his sins, even Malcolm wasn't that bad.

This was how he liked to think of the strange turn of events that had transpired in only the last few years of his already drawn out life. And to think that he'd felt spread out thinner than America's Next Top Model in his shorter-than-expected stint in the slammer, just a missed meal short of his own space in the next Obituary column—who was to know that it was the perfect opportunity for a career change that was practically tailor fucking made for him?

And, as a matter of fact, it was.

See, unlike James Bond—that fucker never had to deal with fucking _aliens_. Who knew?

When he was back in the Lion's den that was Number 10, it was incidents involving extraterrestrials that were the absolute fucking worst. Everything always needed covering up and it would be needing statements from the Prime Minister himself – journalists and their coked up editors and all their shit about accountability and public safety like they gave fuck all about any of that – and they would all be fucking wetting themselves until Uncle Malc could come in with pacifiers and mobiles to make everything okay again, only to be shat and pissed on at first chance.

 _Cunts._

This, however, was quite preferable in comparison.

He had had no intention of dabbling back into politics or public relations, after the massive clusterfuck that was that fucking mistake of an inquiry, when he first meditated on it; this was before a blonde woman called Kate Stewart stormed in for all of two weeks into his sentence and plucked him up as a recruit for the service of Her Majesty—with the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, no less.

Fuck him if he saw that twist coming. Next thing he knew, he was acquitted of all charges, given handsome compensation following his exoneration, and there wasn't so much as a manicurist's whisper about the whole exchange.

Most days, it was easy to handle. Menial. Tedious.

It was basic monitoring of news feeds and every social media platform currently known to man, from all over the world. Of course, he had assistants for that sort of thing; they who took care of Google Analytics and alien propaganda embedded in lines of SEO copywriting and pretty basic cock ups like that. A man with talents and secrets like Malcolm Tucker was better suited to less than savoury tasks in this particular line of fire; that of which is exactly what he was here for anyway.

It was him keeping ministers of different governments in line, particularly their own as fucking aliens tended to gravitate to Great Britain for some reason (some conspiracy theorists on the internet with all their 53 to 11.6k followers on Twitter claim that its cosmic reparations for the Royal Crown's crimes to human history but he wasn't one to bite the hand that fed him when it wasn't relevant to the situation at hand; he, unlike his previous employers, had a certain sense of fucking loyalty, fuck you very much) – feeding them need to know information in order to redirect the people from mass panic to righteous rage at the imbeciles they voted for in the first place.

Call him Rumplestiltskin, spinning story strings of almost invasions into shit storms that the likes in Number 10 have never seen. Let them clean themselves up for a change; not his fucking problem, was it? He'd be lying if he said he didn't take some form of vindictive pleasure out of it—karma was fucking sweet sometimes, especially when it was on his side. He outranked the fucking Prime Minister now, technically. Sometimes. One could argue that he was more powerful here in the shadows than he ever was in the mighty spotlight of Downing Street.

He suspected Oliver Reeder probably shit his pants with his laparoscopically morcellated innards the first time Malcolm placed a call to give Number 10 the approved lines from UNIT after the _Cubes incident_. Oh, that was a good day—a good first major extraterrestrial catastrophe, averted. They were saved by the man called the Doctor, huzzah. It was just Malcolm's job now to make sure it didn't quite go in the public record.

McCombs and Shaw should come back to life just to give him a fucking blowjob for the empirical evidence that his years in the professional industry of agenda setting could provide.

Barely anyone needed a bollocking down here and for that he, and his blood pressure, were immeasurably grateful. He was now part of the blanket of shadow that tucked the public into bed at night and told them they were protected, without really telling them how they were doing that and what they were protecting them from. For the most part, it was better to let them keep their worlds small.

Some days, however, it was like it was the end of the fucking world. Take today, for example.

Hashtag planes have stopped.

 _Fuck_.

He had been on the phone practically nonstop ever since the news broke out and UNIT had gone to phone up their specialist; he knew things were bad if they had to call in their specialist.

Malcolm hadn't had the time, in the thick of it, to notice that the specialist that they'd brought in was a teeny thing, not the Doctor bloke he'd been expecting, in heeled biker boots and a leather jacket. _Clara Oswald_ , he knew from her records, but she was without the poofta with the chin you could land the presidential aircraft on or the stick insect who dressed like he was auditioning to be Val Valentino's 'where are they now?' photo. That was strange; the Doctor, he knew from the records, was always with one of his companions. And vice versa. That was how it worked.

What the hell was she doing alone?

It has been a few hours since it happened and the planes had started again since then; there were a few casualties, not caused by extraterrestrials (ironically enough) but that wasn't his mess to clean up. He was sat on his desk, massaging his temples as he's just about managed to calm down the fucking World Council, promising that they'll have their statements and meetings and explanations as soon as the Secret President of the World came back to base. He was given strict orders to remain for her briefing and it was all he could do to just sit by his desk and await further instructions.

It was then, in that temporary silence, that he pondered on the circumstances that brought him there.

Malcolm was lost in his own thoughts, jumped from pondering about his childhood dream of espionage (technically) come true to how much he would actually kill for takeaway curry and a fine bottle of scotch ( _single malt_ ; only the really good stuff was allowed on a day like today), when he got the buzz in from up high that the Doctor-Regent (AKA the Companion) has just landed back from Spain. He got an email just as quick and was set to preparing the statements that would come from the basic reports.

Megalomaniacal alien—the same one from the Graveyard Cybermen incident—and stopped the Earth's air traffic just to get Clara Oswald's fucking attention. Details to follow.

 _Christ_.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Constructive criticism is very much encouraged pls.

* * *

" _Because a thing is difficult for you, do not therefore suppose it to be beyond mortal power. On the contrary, if anything is possible and proper for man to do, assume that it must fall within your own capacity."_

Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_

* * *

"Kate, you don't understand. He's gone."

Kate Lethbridge-Stewart stern stare from the monitor, all cool and imperturbably calm command, softened. Clara didn't miss it. The way the other woman's shoulders slumped just so—the only sign in her posture that reflected the gravity of this declaration. From the beginning, they had suggested to contact the Doctor. The planes' freezing mid-flight was not something they had a proper protocol for but she had deflected and tried to delay the announcement for as long as she could.

Her voice turned quiet, lilt dripping with as much grief as she dared allow herself to show—which is to say, not very much. The only inkling of her anguish rest in her half-lidded wistful eyes that looked towards the heavens she flew with now. 'Lo these last few months, Clara Oswald has grown only all too accustomed with holding in her tears as she was doing then.

A pregnant pause erupted between them. She only heard the faint rumbling of the plane's engine in the air.

"You don't mean—" Kate started but Clara shook her head and broke her off. A tear slipped past her defenses but she was only too quick to turn her head and it wipe it away.

"No, not like that. But he's found it. Them. His people," she explained. "He's found Gallifrey. And he's not coming back."

"Records show the Doctor's distaste for—"

"For the High Council," she interrupted again, becoming more and more impatient by the second. She just wanted to go home, have a shower to clean the dirt and time travel off of herself, and sleep her life away for the next week or two. Clara took a deep breath, clearly exasperated with her hand gestures, and continued, "For _war_ , yes. Not for the Outsiders. The _children_ , most of all; you know how he is. He can't resist. There are more than just Time Lords on Gallifrey.

"He's been gone a thousand years for them now or who knows how long in their time; they're ruled by bloody Time Lords, for God's sake, who the hell knows how time works for them? And he's the man who stopped the biggest war the universe has ever known. I wouldn't be surprised if they made him _king_. He'd be rubbish at it, of course, but he has enough to deal without fussing about us and cleaning up our messes."

 _Without fussing about me,_ she thought, but she kept that bit to herself. There are some things that are simply bigger – like the promises she's vowed to keep. Kate considered this before she nodded, arching a brow.

"Do we have allies?"

"We can make some," Clara suggested, shrugging her shoulders. "Stop trying to blow up every unknown ship in the sky, we could actually make some friends out there. We're already cohabiting with Zygons and Silurians here so why not? It isn't just our planet anymore. Technically, it was never really just ours."

" _Silurians?_ "

"Yeah, surprise," she replied, rolling her eyes. There was a humourless smile on her lips and her hands gestured flippantly. "Won't have to worry about them for a while yet, I think. A few more centuries 'til they're up and about, if memory serves me right, so we've got time to get the world used to the idea."

"And you're _certain_ of this?"

"Positive." Clara nodded.

She turned her eyes towards the clouds again and muttered, "He wouldn't leave me here for anything less."

* * *

Kate led Clara down the labyrinthine corridors of UNIT HQ.

It was almost exactly the type of headquarters that a secret organization would have in the pictures – dim lights, secluded hallways, secret passageways – and Clara couldn't help but keep her vigilance, an alert eye taking in every lab coat and armed gunman. She also took note of emergency exits and of doors that required key codes and specialized identification cards.

It was properly James Bond-esque, in a way, and a voice at the back of her head told her that her father would have loved this. He had always been convinced that the government was funding secret organizations like this with the good tax payers' money – little did he know that some of it actually did go to good use. The thought almost made her want to smile and, indeed, she suppressed the hint of it that was threatening to take over her bow lips. She tucked them in.

All the while, she matched Kate in stride with ease as her relatively shorter limbs were only too used to the swift pace.

Not a word was said in exchange between the two women as she was led to an office that was covered with monitors and desks and spare paper. Each agent had at least two monitors to themselves and they were all constantly scrolling through social media feeds, through analytics and graphs, and there was the sound of constant chatter as they spoke in different dialects to their Bluetooth headsets.

Kate led her up a few stairs to a main office which was singularly occupied. He rose as soon as the pair of them entered and when the door closed behind them, the noise from outside was drowned out significantly.

The man before her looked almost familiar. He was all dark salt-and-pepper hair and pale skin, as if he hadn't seen the sun in days, and the only hint of colour on him was the bright red tie he wore. His suit, dark grey, was rumpled to the point that almost looked like it had been lived in. He needed a shave as well and his eyes were almost red-rimmed to the point of being bloodshot. He rubbed his tired eyes with his fingers and waddled towards them from his desk.

Clara eyed him up and down; he did the same to her—his eyes, his brows almost as severe as the scowl he wore. Kate took a device from the pocket of her coat and pressed a button. The windows to his office became opaque and the noise from the outside was completely blocked out.

The word _confidential_ hung silently in the air. Malcolm raised a brow and cocked his head, the look he gave them saying that he was asking a thousand and twelve questions all at once.

"Miss Oswald, this is Malcolm Tucker," Kate said, gesturing for the two by way of introduction. "UNIT's Chief Communications Officer and Head of Public Relations."

She extended a hand immediately and gave it a quick, firm shake when he took it. They nodded at one another.

"Malcolm, this is Clara Oswald. You know her file, I'm sure."

"I know _you_ ," Clara quipped without thinking before he could make his forced pleasantries. "You were all over the papers a few years ago, yeah?"

Tongue-in-cheek, he swallowed and gave nothing away but a shrug of his shoulders as he pocketed his hands. He licked his thin lips and forced a smile.

"Casualty in a public execution to hide the putrid scent of corpses and shit that the government has tried to bury in the Thames, love. Nothing more," he said. _Sore subject_ , she noted with immediate regret. He looked to Kate now. "What's the damage this time?"

"The threat has been contained," she answered. "But we need a meeting with the International Shadow Council immediately. It seems there's now a complication with our incursion protocols."

" _International Shadow Council?_ " Clara asked.

"A council composed of representatives for the leaders all over the world. They're ones who elected the Doctor as President in the event of extraterrestrial catastrophe; it was inducted in 2009."

"Hang the fuck on— _what_ complication?" he asked.

"The Doctor's gone," Kate answered. She didn't see Clara's eyes flinch away or how she quickly took a breath. "And he isn't to return. Indefinitely."

Malcolm stared and gawped at the both of them, one of his hands sneaking to the back of his neck.

"You're telling me we lost our fucking specialist?"

"No," Clara cut in, "I'm telling you that _I'm_ your specialist now."

" _You?_ " He said with such vehement incredulity that Clara could only stand up straighter, hold her head up just that much higher.

"Yes. _Me._ " She raised a brow at him. "Problem?"

"Permission to speak freely?" he asked them both.

"As if the lack of permission would be a deterrent for you," Kate deadpanned, sighing.

"What—" asked Clara; her eyes darted back and forth between the two in present company as if watching a tennis match. "What is it?"

"No offense, sweetheart, but you're fucking telling me the fate of the fucking world's in the hands of a fucking _secondary school teacher?_ "

Clara's jaw practically dropped to the floor. Her breath caught in her throat and for a moment, all she could do was stare at him. Heat prickled almost immediately at the back of her eyes as she felt anger's warmth rise in her veins. Her fingers ever so longed to twitch and ball themselves to a fist but she kept them at bay, her arms forcibly stiff as they crossed against her chest. She spoke, controlled schoolmarm in full effect.

"I'm just a schoolteacher as much as _he's_ just a man in a box. One who's not even of this world in the first place!"

"It's just the facts, love," he said, flippantly and without remorse. "Look at the 456 incident, for fuck's sake! We can't even stop _each other_ from dropping fucking bombs! Those cosmic twats could rain down forty days and nights of shit on us but all that'll be left of us is the fucking mess of panicked hashtags we've left behind and you're telling me we're on our fucking own now?"

"What exactly is the point you're trying to make here?"

"The point is that you two have clearly lost your fucking minds if you think the ISC's going to sanction an English lass with the exact dimensions of a fucking Funko pop as the new Earth President! What're you going to do the next time some fucking Martian cunts pull out their sword cocks from Satan's Nebula or some shite and come fucking knocking with their laser eyes and acid cum? Make them read fucking Walt Whitman and Shakespeare's fucking sonnets?"

The crack of a slap echoed throughout the closed room like booming thunder. Malcolm doubled back as he almost fell over and Kate took a step back to avoid him knocking into her.

And here comes Clara Oswald's lightning—ready to strike and set fire.

"How _dare_ you?" Clara hissed. "What the hell makes you think you're at a station where you're _allowed_ to take that tone with me?"

Her eyes shone with tears — born of anger, not of grief – and Malcolm's pupils blew wide, as if he'd just been woken up. He had a hand against where she'd slapped him and his piercing gaze has never been more intensely focused on her that part of her felt as if he might devour her whole. He didn't cower away from her; on the contrary, he met her halfway as if he were ready to stoop to her level of anger, metaphorical fist swinging and all, but she got the first hit, first crack and she wouldn't let him get a word in edgewise.

"I'll have you know that I have saved _you_ ; I have saved this whole damn planet over and over and _over_ again, and I am just as bloody well qualified to defend it!"

Clara took a step towards him and he took the appropriate step back as everything about her radiated pure vitriolic rage. It was all Kate could do to hold her back by the arm from slapping him again.

"Do you think your temper tantrum's going to change anything?!" Tears fell fresh from her eyes now and emotion, raw and real, came pouring through like water bursting from a dam. "HE'S GONE! Get that through your head— _The Doctor's gone!_ And he isn't coming back so here's how we deal with it, have I made myself _clear_?"

"Clara," Kate started. The calm eye between two brewing storms. Clara turned to look at her and the blonde woman's features remained as unruffled as ever. "He has a point."

" _Seriously?_ You're doubting me because, what— because I'm young?"

"That's not—"

She shrugged off the hand Kate had on her with a tiny bit more force than necessary.

"Because I'm a _girl_?" She turned her head to look at Malcolm, gaze made for warm looks now sharp and implacable as jagged rock. Her chest rose and fell with heaving, heavy breaths.

Clara could feel a vein in her neck throbbing, the echoes of her racing pulse reaching her ears. Her wide face grew warm and red, tears freely flowing from her eyes. "Do not presume to know what I am capable of. You have _no_ idea what I'm willing to do and what I'm willing to risk for this world, in the name of the Doctor, and you've only barely scratched the surface _of what I've already done._ "

A pause filled the room as Clara composed herself and furiously wiped at her eyes with the ends of her grey jumper that she'd pulled to cover her fingers. Splotches of darkened grey covered where her tears met cloth but they were soon swallowed by her leather jacket as she stretched her arms out and put her hands on her hips. She turned away from them and paced. Her breaths were deliberately slow and deep as she tried to calm herself and she sharply swallowed anything that felt like an erupting sob. It was not the time to break—she wasn't the type to be allowed to break, she knew that now.

When she spoke again, her features showed nothing but almost impeccable equanimity. The sheen of freshly shed tears still framed her long-lashed, bulging wide eyes, yes, but her voice hardly wavered. As if her temper had never been lost at all.

After all, she had a point to prove.

"We can tell the council that I'm the Doctor. There's precedence that a Time Lord can change genders upon regeneration, thanks to Missy. Tell them I'm currently fobwatched – disguised in human physiology – to further assimilate to this world to keep it safe. Exiled as a war criminal from Gallifrey. I mean– that's sort of happened before, right? The exiling bit?"

Kate considered the proposal. Malcolm rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb and looked at it, expecting blood, but saw only the sheen that came from his own mouth's moisture. He glared at Clara, a hand still against where she'd slapped him; he barely even blinked, but the slap – as it would seem – humbled him enough to hold his tongue.

"It's reasonable," Kate conceded and looked down for a split second before she turned to Malcolm. "And with the 456? In 2009, we _did_ call the Doctor for help. He didn't come. It's why the council even exists."

Malcolm licked his lips and his stare met Clara's. She did not back away from it so he did. He pressed his tongue to the wall of his cheek and turned his back to them, calming himself with deep breaths just the same.

"Okay. Okay…" Kate began as the air around them began to settle down from the bursts of anger that had erupted between the other two, "The primary point is that the threat has been neutralized. In the event of another attack, Miss Oswald is our lead advisor and will front as the President of Earth in the event that the Doctor isn't there to help us."

" _Miss Oswald,_ " Malcolm quickly pointed out, venom dripping around every vowel of her name, with animatedly gesturing hands, "has a _life_ here. On paper. Records! _Documented._ Any one of them can call our bluff."

"Call it fabricated, then," Clara responded without hesitation. She shrugged her shoulders, features made to be gentle caught now in a hardened glare right back him. "Call it a really elaborate cover story; if it can convince a _Cyberman_ , it'll work for a bloody _politician_. Say Clara Oswald has never really existed. Dig deep enough, you'll find my face in every era of time under a different name. I'm impossible—and that makes the lie plausible."

"Then you'd better have one _hell_ of a fucking poker face, darling," he acquiesced, though made no secret of his great displeasure towards the idea. Malcolm sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He then thought to ask, as he gestured, "And what about the fucking planes?"

Kate pulled out her phone. A notification was on the screen and she started typing away with furious fingers. She answered him without looking up. "I can't tell you how to do your job but I can't imagine the world buying that this is another Derren Brown stunt."

"Fucking fuck me," he muttered, "what the fuck even _happened_ to the planes?"

"Miss Oswald will explain. It was Time Lord technology. The plane will be ready in an hour to take you to the emergency summit with the ISC. The location's being arranged as we speak. Malcolm, you'll need to calm down the world's presses. This is global so you have full access to international comms for 48 hours."

"Where the fuck are _you_ going?"

"Adjustments have to be made for the new leadership," she answered as she pocketed her phone only to take it back out as another notification buzzed through. "Miss Oswald—"

"Just Clara. Please."

"Clara," she amended, still typing on her phone. "You'll need to face the ISC at the summit. Explain and convince them of the situation. Malcolm will accompany you—you're my eyes and ears and my spokesman, if need be. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take this— yes, hello?"

He nodded. Kate started to make her way out the door, phone in her ear, and looked to them before she covered the phone with her other hand and looked back at them for one last reminder.

"Try not to kill each other."

Malcolm scoffed. Clara said nothing, her arms simply crossed against her chest once again.

"Aye. Ta-fucking-ta, ma'am."


	3. Chapter 3

" _Generosity practised out of real good will, as it should be, risks passing unnoticed and you won't escape a reputation for meanness._ "

Niccolò Machiavelli, _The Prince_

* * *

It was not often that Malcolm Tucker felt himself humbled.

By all means, he was not a self-righteous cock-up who was beyond reproach when it was due but to feel humility's keen sting – literally, on his cheek – was something to which he was unaccustomed. The thought of apologising had occurred to him, probably, as was the protocol when one did make a grown woman he'd just met cry for no valid reason, for he was not cruel for cruelty's sake, but he found every word stuck in his throat the moment that it had sunk in that he was alone in the room with Clara Oswald and he finally got a good look at her.

Her hair was disheveled; and her dress and jumper, covered in small cuts and patches of grime and dirt. The last thing he knew of her assignment was that they'd sent her to Tenerife, Spain and that the megalomaniac known as Missy had zapped her someplace only to be zapped back in the blink of an eye. They didn't mention her state.

Alone in the office with him and she wasn't even fazed.

Her knuckles were white as she gripped her arms and though she held her head high, unapologetic for her outburst, he could tell that her eyes were bulging. He knew the look of a woman who was fighting back tears and Clara's were the most defiantly lachrymose eyes he'd ever seen. Malcolm had never seen someone who had just assumed command of the fucking world—he never imagined she'd look so forlorn, so defeated. So profoundly tired. They were fucking Bambi eyes and it was like she was seeing her mother get shot again and again and again.

But she didn't cry.

She kept her back straight and she did not sneer at him or roll her eyes or offer what could have been the first match right after her slap had doused him in gasoline. And the bonfire made of his bones that she was probably owed. He probably would not have begrudged her the animosity that he knew he'd earned. But no. What surprised him most, he thought, was what happened next.

"I'm sorry," she said. Though her posture had not changed (he knew a modern fighting stance when he saw one), her voice was soft. Kind. "For slapping you, I—"

"Nah. Don't be," he mumbled immediately as he ran a thumb across his lower lip. He shuffled his feet and pocketed his other hand, though the other soon mirrored the movement. "It was well deserved. Crossed a fucking line, didn't I?"

Clara only spared him a glance for a moment and nodded.

They stood in admittedly awkward silence for a good second or two. Part of him wanted to say something else or do something else to break the ice, to apologise more sincerely but it was only so long before his racing mind caught up with them and he remembered that they both had work to do. There would be time to lick their wounds later, a time for apologies later, and one good look at her was all he needed to know that she probably needed some time on her own.

"I'll, uh—I'll ring you up some new clothes, yeah? I've got a private shower you can use to freshen up a bit."

"Why've you got a shower in your office?" she asked.

She turned her head to him, brows furrowed in bewilderment. He would not admit that it took him off guard that – of all the things she could ask, of all the things she could have done – that's what she chose to focus on. He met her look with a puzzled one of his own—one that probably came across as a look of his that said ' _you dare question how I manage my office?'._

It wasn't his intention to intimidate her but after years and years of the posture being necessary, it had become a standard. And even if it _were_ his intention, he would have failed. Clara Oswald didn't even flinch in the least; she simply remained as she was and that was to say that she was decidedly unfazed.

It was all he could do to shrug off the question and answer in the most nonchalant manner that he could.

"The job's a possessive fucking mistress, isn't she? It might as well fucking tie me up by my balls and bollocks every time there's even a hint of extraterrestrial tech that might, by the slightest fucking chance, get leaked. So I fucking live here some days with the shit I've got to mop up. Sometimes, it's even worse than fucking Downing Street. It became necessary," he said. He turned back to her and pocketed his hands. "The couch is a fucking foldable bed. Over there's a closet with spare emergency suits. You get the picture."

"Huh," she said. She raised a brow and looked around his office – drab, grey steel, and with hardly a touch or hint that it had ever been lived in at all. Impeccable, hard, cold—a hollow shell with all the comforts of home and kindness hidden behind its walls, much like the man that practically lived in it. Clara nodded at him. "Okay then. Thanks."

* * *

Water cleansed. At least, that's what it was supposed to do.

She had her hand against the cool, smooth wall and all her fingertips could make her remember was the feel of his hand holding hers. Cool skin, comforting fingers, a soothing brush of his thumb against her knuckles; she hissed at the memory, hissed at its loss. The water was near scalding hot against her bare, scarred skin. She tried to watch the water swirl down the drain, taking with it the grime and dirt that had clung on to her, and steam filled the stall with the frosted glass. Yet all she could think of was _him_ and how water was supposed to cleanse, to purify, to wash away everything else so you could be new and clean—you would resurface for air eventually, they said, like all drowned things do.

But the seafloor, thousands of miles beneath the surface in a place that has never known even the smallest drop of sunlight's sweet kiss, was home to many lost graves from shipwrecks and storms, adorned with the bones of those who will never be remembered and those who will never be found.

 _Go to hell,_ he'd said.

Clara gasped as the memory of it came down on her like a tidal wave to a haystack. Saltwater regret on her lips, steam clogging in her throat—heart racing, heart racing, heart racing. Barely breathing. Veins at her neck pulsing, her wrists itching for no good reason. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe—her lungs were filled with unheard screams that barely emitted a bubble's pop past her lips. Fingers turned claws, clutching her bare chest where her heart should be and she tried to claw it out, to clutch and crush it in her hands. Yet even in the darkness of her eyes closed shut, she could see the scene so vividly.

 _Big blue eyes, lines between them as he couldn't even look at her as he furiously pressed at buttons and toggled toggles and pulled at levers._

"No," she whispered, she prayed as her scratching and clawing reached her neck. "No, no—stop. _Stop._ "

' _You betrayed me.'_

She couldn't breathe.

Heart pounding, mind racing.

She couldn't breathe.

Water raining down her on her but the walls her closing in; there were tears, hot and fresh, burning from behind her eyes.

' _Betrayed my trust, you betrayed our friendship.'_

Heart pounding, mind racing, world spinning and spinning. Not breathing—couldn't breathe.

Hands, opened and closed; fingernails against skin—scratch, scratch, claw, claw.

She couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe.

The scene still played.

' _You betrayed everything I've ever stood for.'_

"Shut up!" she hissed between grit teeth to no one who could listen. Her fists by her throbbing temples had strands of wet hair in her grasp to the point that it hurt—but the pain was hardly enough to distract her from reliving the moment over and over and over again. So she chanted. "Shut up, shut up, shut up…"

' _YOU LET ME DOWN!_ '

She punched the wall as hard as she could. Pain – great and terrible pain – made itself known from her knuckles, sharp stinging pain traveling with lightning speed up her arm, but even then it wasn't enough. Her mouth opened but she did not cry out. One hit, two hits, three hits with all the force her arm could muster and at the fourth hit, she cradled her aching fist against her chest. Her knuckles burnt red but the skin unbroken, a small mercy in itself; mouth, hung open with small squeaks and gasps of pain.

It was then that Clara Oswald crumbled to her knees. She curled into herself, arms around her middle, and she wept in near silence with the shower masking any sound she might have made. The showerhead above her still rained down water remained almost boiling but she could not make herself move away.

Her hands, her arms were shaking; the shaking wouldn't stop. She had her eyes wide open though water cascaded from the shower head above, hot and fast. Thick clumps of her damp hair stuck to her face and she bowed her head as she tried to regain control of her body and force herself to breathe. Breathe in and out, in and out, and in and out but a sickness rose in her throat and her heart was stopping and starting and falling all at the same time.

She could see the tiles and the glass of the shower stall. For a while, the pain blinded her enough that it was all she could think of as she curled into herself but even that soon faded away and yet all her mind's eye could take in was the scene that would not leave her disapproving hum of the TARDIS, the dimmed blue of the console room all around and the faint yellow from the console itself, and him—him and the bright breaking of his eyes with tears she knew he kept unshed, the trembling of his thin lips, and the words of his that she knew would stay with her for as long as she lived.

' _Go to hell,_ ' she remembered him saying. Context be damned.

 _Go to hell._

 _Go to hell._

 _Go to hell._

"I wish," she whispered to herself, to absolutely no one who heard or understood. "God, I wish I could."

The world was on fire, moving that hundreds of thousands – maybe even millions – of miles per hour in space, and yet the world was completely still.

On the outside and when surrounded by those who expected her fall but needed her to stay strong, Clara held herself in the only way she knew how. When she stood, she stood tall and held her head high. Fragile human girl as she may be, she did not let people see the cracks that she knew were there. Her skin was not pristine – there were cuts and bruises all over her from numerous adventures that she could never share – yet she showed nothing but indomitability. She'll be praised for her survival of everything that could have killed her but they'll never know the price she paid.

They'll never know how she paid that price every single time she looked at her bare self in the mirror.

There was nothing glorious about surviving—not when you could hear the screams of all the ones you could not save, not when all you could see were the broken eyes of all of those whom you'd let down, and all the days that should have been but will never come. She looked still and sturdy but in reality, fractures of her were splintering away at millions of miles per hour, by the hour; she didn't know how to pull the pieces of herself back together and she didn't know what home she could ever possibly land back to.

Perhaps she went to hell after all. This was the land _she_ was promised—that she deserved. Like Cain, cursed to walk the Earth alone. A child of Eve indeed.

Water still kept pouring from the shower (she didn't know when the hot water stopped coming down but it did) and when she'd finished her silent weeping, she rose with shaking knees and washed with the soap that was there. Clara focused on the most menial of details, if only to get the whole thing over and done with. The only scent from the soap that she could pick up was the soft hint of mint, which was pleasant enough, and when she had washed herself as decently as she could, given the circumstances, she slid the frosted glass door of the shower open.

Her discarded clothes were still in an unbothered pile near the rug but hanging on the hook stuck to the door was a black zip-up bag and a fluffy white towel. There was a smaller black bag and her boots by the foot of the door. Puzzled, Clara never heard Malcolm even peep inside, though she supposed that perhaps an assistant could have put it there for decency's sake.

She dried herself off, dressed in the clothes provided for her, and wrapped her hair up in the towel. Inside the smaller bag were a few toiletries and a bit of makeup – concealer, pressed powder, mascara, blusher, and a tinted lip balm – all of which, Clara used to their full advantage. It was a few minutes later that when she surveyed the damage of herself on a mirror that she deemed herself as respectable-looking as she was then going to get.

* * *

Malcolm didn't know how someone could look so bone tired even after a shower but Clara Oswald seemed to be developing a habit of proving him wrong.

When she left his shower, she unrolled her hair from the towel it was wrapped in, and set to drying it out while she sat on his sofa. She'd paid him no mind and, to be perfectly honest, he didn't really expect her to. He could have sworn that he heard the distant, purposeful pounding of something blunt against the wall and when he saw her reddened knuckles, he thought he wasn't quite as qualified to talking to her about it. Not when her big eyes looked so distant and so cried out.

He had seen many a person look tired to the bone, look like they could use a nap for a few hours proceeded by a week of indulgent sulking—but this was different.

Clara was functioning as well as any other normal person should – she kept her back straight, her legs crossed, as she dried her short hair out with the towel. Yet her big, brown eyes were half lidded and her lips in a dull half-part. To the more observant mind, one could see her movements as robotic. Forceful, even. Like all the life and hope had been drained from her and it was all she could do to keep one foot in front of the other when all she wanted to was lie down, and yet here she was—putting the fate of the entire world on her shoulders. Fucking volunteering to singlehandedly man the front lines— her, the sole champion of the Earth, against literally the rest of the universe.

He raised his brows but she didn't look at him. She might have forgotten he was even there. He crossed his arms against his chest, leaned his arse against the edge of his table, and cleared his throat. Clara looked at him then.

"I can ring up some tea if you want," he said, shrugging. She looked like she was considering the offer; her hands still rubbing the towel against portion after portion of her still damp hair.

"Something a bit _stronger_ than tea would be nice," she replied. Her voice sounded hoarse. Malcolm pretended not to notice. He pursed his lips and she looked away again.

If she had her way, they might have spent the rest of the time they had to wait for her plane in absolute silence. And, don't get him wrong, silence was absolutely fine by him. He could get more work done in the silence. But his earlier fuck up and the state of this woman considering, the silence felt wrong to him. Like the air between them was too cold, too thin. Was this was humility felt like? Looked like Malcolm Tucker had a conscience after all.

Malcolm went to the back of his desk and opened a desk drawer where he retrieved a small silver flask. Three rows of seemingly random numbers marked its otherwise smooth edges. He handed her the flask, which she took wordlessly and let the white towel hang across her shoulders, and rested his arse right back on its spot against his table.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Something a bit stronger than tea."

"2-0-1-0-2-0-1-2," she said as the soft blade of her fingertip ran against the engraved surface. The last row of numbers. "What does that mean?"

"Doesn't _mean_ anything," he said, rolling his eyes. He did not mean to be quite so snippy and yet, here he was. "Listen, do you want the fucking scotch or not?"

Exasperated, Malcolm gave her a look. She opened the flask and took a sniff of it. She made a face at the smell but after she took a swig of it, she downed the rest of the whole thing in three gulps. He didn't know whether he should be impressed or concerned; though, all things considered, he was leaning more towards the latter.

Alcohol down her system (drunk too quickly for her to actually taste it, if he had to guess), she sighed. She outstretched her arm, flask in hand, and Malcolm took it back and rested it atop his desk. The drink seemed to let her relax her shoulders, which he'd only then realised she'd been keeping rigid and stiff, and she stopped drying her hair. After the day she's had, he reckoned that she earned it. And it seemed to allow for the tension between them to ease, which worked in his professional favour.

He allowed for a few more seconds of quiet before he asked, "You want to tell me what the fuck actually happened with the planes?"

"It was a Time Stop," Clara explained. She leaned back against the sofa and sighed. "Missy, she—she froze time for every plane that was then-airborne so not even the passengers know that the planes had stopped in the first place, probably. They were never in any real danger, she couldn't have done anything to them. She said so herself so it's probably true; she'd never admit to not being able to do anything, it'd be against her ' _I'm the bloody, all-knowing queen of everything and everyone else is beneath me_ ' motif."

"You say probably too much," he joked. She gave him a look that wiped the small smirk right off his face.

"The point _is_ that she's gone and everything's okay for now."

"How is that even possible?"

"She's a Time Lord. Well… _Lady_ ," she corrected herself. "Parlour trick, she said. They're very clever and there are lots of things that they can do that we think should be impossible but actually aren't."

"Right. Fuck." He ran a hand against his short, graying curls and groaned. He muttered, mostly to himself, "Jesus, how the fuck am I going to spin this?"

"Were any planes damaged in the stop?" she asked. Surprised, he looked at her and blinked. She initiated the continuation of the conversation. That was a good sign, he supposed.

"No, why?"

"You've got plausible deniability on your side then, considering that the people in the planes were frozen in time as well. I'm guessing there's some sort of gag order on the issue for now, yeah?" she asked. Malcolm nodded. "Make something up then, if you can't tell the truth. That there weren't actually planes stopped in the sky—more a testing protocol for new defense technology."

"Whip out the old can't divulge precise details for security reasons beat?"

"Exactly. It'll die out eventually because there's no official answer," she said, shrugging. "Let them conspire for now. Maybe let out a few bogus articles, try and prove some of the photos were photoshopped or something. All you need's the sliver of doubt."

Malcolm ran a tired hand across his face. She had a point, even he would admit to that; what he wouldn't admit to, however, was the shame that he didn't think of that himself. He was a master of spin. Iago with a fucking Blackberry. The Dark Lord of Downing Street. And these were all hard earned monikers. Nobody could do his job better than he could and yet, here he was—bested by something an Oxbridge wanna-be whistleblower twat learned in _Introduction to Journalism 101_.

It wasn't about what was true—it was about what people wanted to believe was true and sometimes, for their own good, the people had to be protected from the truth.

Maybe he was getting old. Maybe he was just tired too. Maybe he'd spent too long thinking about how the side of his face still stung from the slap it received from her earlier. The memory of it made him run the tip of his tongue against the wall of his cheek.

"Can I ask on what happened at Tenerife?" he said.

"What's there to ask about?" she retorted.

"One minute you were perfect and prim Little Miss Muppet and the next, Scotty beams you fucking back a fucking fright, but you're saying everything's all fucking roses."

She scrunched her nose. "You swear too much."

"Part of the fucking charm, love," he shrugged. "Doesn't answer my question."

"Do you _have_ to know?" she leaned forward, her elbows against her thighs, hands in a position of prayer but she just looked resigned. Immediately, he felt remorse for it – for, clearly, there was more to the story than she was willing to let on and it wasn't his fucking business to play her fucking shrink – but there was still a job to be done, feelings and trauma be damned.

(Little did he know that she knew that mantra only all too well.)

"First rule of agenda setting, darling: always know the truth you have to spin—it's necessary for a believable lie."

She scoffed and licked her lips.

"You don't have to tell _me_ twice." Her fingers fidgeted and fumbled as she tapped her feet. A beat later, she said, "Fine."

"She was looking for the Doctor," she continued. "I couldn't tell her at first—I didn't want to. But she was— … I lost two men," she said, suddenly solemn as she admitted it. She turned her head away from him and he didn't bother pressing on. Let her have her two seconds of mourning—survivor's guilt, they called it. A Commander's guilt, more like—when you sent your boys off to the front line only to not have them come back. She'd have to live with that, he realised and he had, in this briefest silence, to ask himself… what other sky-like burden was she holding? How much guilt did rest in those tiny bones of hers?

Clara went on.

"Then she made me try to find him. We managed to find enough anachronisms in 10th century England. I thought she might find a younger him or something. That might've worked for whatever reason she had, I don't know. Time travel's never as easy as it sounds. Parallel and pocket universes always overlapping between freak rifts in the time-space continuum or… summat. Anyway, she zapped me there with her but he wasn't _there_ and she thought I was lying to buy time for him or something. She started asking questions. About how come I didn't know where he _was_ , how come he wasn't coming to my rescue yet or whatever, and that he'd never just leave one of his _pets_ lying around being _useless_ , and…"

Her voice had started to break. Malcolm remained silent as he watched her, his angry brows furrowed not in anger for once. She'd spoken so quickly, like she couldn't quite stop the confession from flowing out. She was breathing like she'd just run a marathon. He could almost see the vein on her neck pulsing. Stress, he knew. Yet she took a deep breath and forced herself to continue as evenly as she could.

"I'd had enough and I ended up telling her where he was. Yelling, actually, more like. Told her about how he found Gallifrey, like she told him to. Like she wanted him to."

She quickly wiped a tear that had fallen but others soon followed suit. Malcolm didn't know if he should get a tissue – or if he even had any at hand – but this was the second fucking time within the last hour that he'd made her cry without meaning to, and it hurt somewhere deep inside him to see her cry.

He'd reviewed her files before she got to his office, he could see the photos of her in his mind's eye—those eyes of hers used to look so bright. She smiled in nearly every photograph. And yet here she was, in the flesh, trying desperately to keep herself together. He knew what that looked like. He knew what it was like to keep standing when all you wanted was to let yourself fall apart.

He wanted to let her know it was okay if she did. He wouldn't judge her for it, not now. But perhaps his earlier comments of his regarding her appearance, his doubt of her and how she could protect the world when she was just an ordinary English teacher, would make that difficult for her to believe. Regret—that was what he felt right then as she cried as quietly as she could, wiping away tears before they had a chance to fall in the first place. Forcing herself to look as okay as she wanted to be.

Malcolm was not a cruel man, despite his propensity to be cruel when it was absolutely fucking necessary. He did not take pride in being feared and he certainly took no joy from the crying woman before him. Yet he did not move from where he'd perched himself—still as a fucking statue. Let her feel safe enough to actually feel what she was really feeling—any sudden movement could remind her that there was a stranger right there with her.

A moment later, Clara continued.

"And she just had this—this look on her face. Like a pout and a smirk and just this— she didn't say anything else, she just had this… this _glint_ in her eye— just a look on her face like she'd _won_ or something. Looked at me all sad and condescending and said ' _Oh_ '," she said. Her voice was filled with emotion and breaths were forcibly long and heavy. She exhaled and straightened up, looking dead straight at the wall and finished. "So she pressed a few buttons, grinned like a bloody Cheshire cat, and zapped me back. Fried the vortex manipulator in the process but it got me back in one piece, which was pretty _fucking_ generous by her standards."

She laughed without humour and shook her head as she looked away, tongue pressed against the wall of her cheek, for a moment before she looked back at him with a raised brow. "Satisfied?"

Malcolm considered it for a moment, his hands on either side of him. His fingers drummed against his table. He cocked his head and closed his eyes.

"So she really actually did all that with the fucking planes just to get your _attention_? Couldn't she have just fucking emailed or something? Fucking robot carrier pigeon? Hell, even fucking contained it to fucking Britain and not make it a trending fucking topic worldwide?"

Clara cracked a smile then and gave a short laugh. He let one eye open and he smirked a little, knowing that his levity got him somewhere, at least.

"They're _aliens_ , Malcolm Tucker, and not the kind the Tories hate either. Though they really kind are, too. More than that, they're _Time Lords_. They don't believe in manners. Or subtlety," she said wryly. _There it is_ , he thought—that first trace of the actual Clara Oswald he'd read about in her files. She sighed. "Anyway, I don't think she'll be bothering us lot anymore—not for a long while, at least. She only ever bothered with Earth so long as _he_ was here to bother too so we're fine for the time being, I think."

"You think or you hope?"

"Hope," she admitted, grimacing with wry amusement. "Honestly, if I never see her again, it'll be too damn soon."

"You really don't think he's coming back, then?" he asked.

"No. I know he's not," she answered. "Not for a few years. Maybe in a century or a millennium or so, give or take. Until then and even after… Malcolm, we can't just keep waiting to be saved. That's no way to live."

Malcolm let his head hang. Bit his tongue. He felt a buzz in his trouser pocket and reached for his phone. He started tapping away and Clara combed through her still damp but slightly drier hair and rested the towel on the sofa.

"We can be just as good, you know," she said suddenly. He looked up at her from his phone.

"Sorry?"

"Us. Humans. Sure, we may never be as _smart_ as they are— we may never understand time like _they_ do and we _fuck up_ —" He smiled at her swearing. A few minutes within his radius of influence, he'd like to say, or perhaps some of her filters were coming down. "Lots of times, _monumentally_ so, like you said. But there's a reason why the Doctor has a penchant for choosing companions from Earth. Because we can be _just as good_ as any Time Lord. As any Doctor. Even without the time travel and the stupid hats."

"Is that why there's a fucking fez in a glass container in the fucking archives?"

"Is that still in there?" she asked, grinning. She tucked her lips in and smirked. "That fez saved the universe once, you know. Ended the greatest war this universe has ever known." He raised a brow. "Well, it helped." He cocked his head. "Well sort of. _Technically._ " He smiled. So did she.

"That was a _really_ good day," she concluded, leaning back against the sofa once more. His phone buzzed again.

"Well," he said as he read the message. "Let's get on with ending this shite one. Wheels up, _Doctor Clara._ Your chariot awaits."

* * *

Clara Oswald, as it turned out, did spectacularly well under pressure.

Even under the expected scrutiny from some of the more boisterous members of the ISC, she held her own. When Malcolm watched her in that council room in an undisclosed building, in a location that was classified to protect certain members of the council, he could find almost no trace of the sad woman who had been crying in his office just a few hours ago.

The spin tactic she suggested had gone without a hitch. There were heated debates about it on every fucking social media website but nobody had any real answers, not even Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Were there even any real planes that had stopped in the sky in the first place or were certain members of the populace just experiencing a shared schizophrenic hallucination? There were already at least 3 fucking Buzzfeed articles about it, even. Most of the papers were calling it a hoax. Brands were taking advantage of the worldwide mini-panic with sudden ads, which were fucking testaments to their marketing teams, really – KitKat, for example, with its ' _See? Even planes need a break_ ' slogan – and the millennials were too busy making the planes stopping phenomenon into fucking meme after meme instead of actually criticising the bigger possibility that the frozen planes even suggested.

All in all, the plan had worked. Another day, another alien threat neutralised.

In the flight back home, when his phone had finally settled down into an easier-to-manage only one message every ten minutes instead of every ten milliseconds, did he realise that his 5'2" Commander-in-Charge had perched herself onto one of the larger chairs and fell asleep. She held her knees to her chest and her frizzy, short hair was a mess as she slept. Guards stood on every door, however, with their backs turned to the pair of them.

Her brows her scrunched together as she slept and she whined quietly as she dreamt. And fucking no, he thought to himself. She would not fucking end her day like this.

He looked around and when he was certain that nobody was looking, he took two soft blankets and a large pillow from the overhead cupboards. Ever gentle so as to not wake her, he reached to pull the lever at the side of her chair slowly so as to let the footrest rise and for the backrest to tilt back slightly. He draped the blankets over her and, with the most careful that his hands had ever been, he reached to hold her by the back of her neck, to let the pillow slide behind her and rest against her head. He tucked her hair behind her ear and she sighed; the lines betwixt her brows, slowly relaxing. Malcolm held his breath the entire time that he manoeuvred around her but he exhaled once he saw that she had relaxed into hopefully dreamless slumber.

She'd had a hard day, after all. She'd earned her rest. And Malcolm Tucker was not a cruel man when he didn't have to be.

A few minutes later, a guard came up to him with one of the phones and said it was Chief Stewart, wanting to talk to _the Doctor_ for some reason. A debrief, maybe; a new alien problem, only all too fucking likely. And yet, as the engines' smooth and quiet hum filled the calm around them, Malcolm turned the guard away, his standard glare affixed in his eyes as he shooed the boy away.

"No, no," he said. "Kate can wait 'til tomorrow. Let her fucking sleep."


End file.
